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14. The Customs Act provides for a comprehensive framework governing the import and export of goods, articles into the country with an objective to curb smuggling of goods into the country through seaports and airports. The Customs Act is a complete code in itself and it being a special legislation, it has its own powers, procedures, rules and mode of operation including the powers of arrest, investigation, examination of persons, inspection, seizure, confiscation, adjudication, imposition of penalty, appellate mechanisms, the settlement commission. These reasons in itself confer vast powers on the customs department for it being a statute which aims at preventing the proliferation of a parallel economy which is askew from the normal economy and which allows the spreading of all illegal and banned activities including terrorism, illegal money transfers, trafficking of vulnerable groups and the derailment of the normal economy thereby shifting the balance of demand and supply and creating an artificial shortage or excess of goods.